


I'll Be Home...

by chlochlo



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Soldier and Ballerina AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 02:08:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18561793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlochlo/pseuds/chlochlo
Summary: “I hope you’re ok with seeing your wife cry,” Marie jokes, peering over at Scott’s screen.“You think she’ll cry?” Scott chuckles.Marie raises her eyebrow as if the answer to his question is an obvious one, and Scott chuckles once more. His heart clenches, though, at the thought of those bright green eyes welling up with tears, her pearl white teeth biting down on her lips, and the way her voice will probably crack when she finally opens her mouth to speak. “But only happy tears,” Marie says gently.





	I'll Be Home...

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! 
> 
> To those of you that celebrate it, Happy belated Easter (if there are any Russians out there, Happy early Easter), and Happy Earth Day. I am still chipping away at the High School Teachers AU that I started a couple of weeks back (thank you, Virtuexmoir, summersland, LeahC, and anons for your ideas!), but I wanted to write this short one-shot for those and the family of those that cannot make it home for the holidays. Special thank you to the lovely ladies that inspired this (I'm going to trust that you know who you are). I hope it doesn't disappoint!

Scott’s eyelids flutter open at the firm jostling of his arm. His temple still resting against the cool cabin wall, Scott blinks, allowing his eyes to adjust to the blinding sunlight that is piercing through the window. 

“Scott,” an exuberant whisper calls. It is followed by a series of urgent taps on his bicep. “ _Scott_. Sc--”

“Hush, Billie,” Marie reprimands, her voice stern and thickly laced with her French accent. “Let him sleep.”

“But _Mama_ ,” Billie whines, and Scott gives in to the heaviness of his eyelids and the smile that is tugging on the corner of his lips. He’d met Marie and her daughter Billie at the departure gate, where she was juggling her carry-on luggage, Billie’s tiny ladybug shaped backpack, as well as the whining child herself. They were on their way back from visiting Billie’s grandparents, Marie had explained while Scott entertained the four-year-old with his phone and light bounces of his knee. Her husband would’ve loved to fly out with them, but he was deployed earlier that year for his last tour of duty. No wonder Billie had taken to Scott so quickly.

He’d only intended to pretend to be asleep, but Scott soon finds himself creeping into that gray area between wakefulness and deep slumber, the string of French marching out of Marie’s mouth serving as wonderful white noise. 

The next thing he knows, Scott is being jolted awake by static noise. 

“Cabin crew,” the pilot’s mumbles echo throughout the cabin, “prepare for landing.”

Scott stretches his legs out and combs his hair roughly with his fingers. As the wings of the airplane slice through the now thin layer of clouds, Scott presses his nose against the window and stares down at the beautiful scenery below him: the miniscule ships, barely moving and looking like they are glued onto the calm, blue jello of an ocean; the vast prairies, some dark green and others gold; the houses, small but the love it houses sure to be big.

Billie is fast asleep next to him. Her head lolls sideways and lands on Scott’s arm just as he’s put his hand in his pocket to fish for his phone. He shakes his head and offers Marie a soft smile when she reaches over to readjust Billie’s position, instead pulling his hand out gently so as to not disturb the sleeping child. Marie smiles apologetically before leaning back into her seat. 

They say that dogs grow to resemble their owners over time, and that’s exactly what seems to have happened to Scott’s phone. It’s only three years old, but looks like it’s been through hell and back. The bottom left corner of the screen has been shattered, held together only by the thin screen protector, and it shuts down on its own for no apparent reason once in a while. It’s battered and frustrating to deal with sometimes, but it’s the phone that he tossed back and forth in his hand as he waited for his first and last love at the restaurant where they had their first date; it’s the phone that he dropped when he first saw his fiancé in her wedding dress; it’s the phone that he’d clutched onto for dear life as he paced back and forth the day his daughter was born. There are messages, photos, and videos on this battered thing that, sure, he could transfer over to a new phone, but it just… it wouldn’t be the same.

He’s scrolled through his photos so many times, he swears he could recite the exact orders they are in and describe each one in detail: from the patterns on the dress his wife is wearing in it to the exact shade of the blue the sky is. God, the number of days he’s spent, lying in the dark with his eyes closed, painting watercolors of his baby girl on her first birthday over the cold, bloodied bodies of children that he doesn’t think will ever fade from his memory…

“I hope you’re ok with seeing your wife cry,” Marie jokes, peering over at Scott’s screen. He didn’t realize he had gone into his photo gallery and started swiping through his photos. Seems like he’s been at it for a while, too, from how a sleep-deprived Tessa is smiling up at him, an infant Gracie cradled in her arms. 

“You think she’ll cry?” Scott chuckles. His wife knows he’s coming home, of course -- just doesn’t know that he’s coming home _today_. She’s not going to like that he didn’t tell her either. He knows it. She hates when he catches her off-guard, particularly if he gets her all emotional and choked up, but come on. How could he not, when he’s returning after more than a year of being away? After an entire _fifteen months_? 

Marie raises her eyebrow as if the answer to his question is an obvious one, and Scott chuckles once more. His heart clenches, though, at the thought of those bright green eyes welling up with tears, her pearl white teeth biting down on her lips, and the way her voice will probably crack when she finally opens her mouth to speak. “But only happy tears,” Marie says gently.

Scott nods. Tessa has gone back to dancing with the National Ballet a few months ago, and he knows she’ll most likely still be in rehearsals by the time he gets there. He thought about waiting at home, maybe with a nice dinner and a fresh vase of flowers, but he knows he’ll go mad, being so close to her yet not running to her right away. They have a show in a couple of weeks, and he knows it’s not the best time to be sauntering into the studio and disrupting rehearsals. But he also misses his wife dearly and would rather peep into the studio, every part of him other than the upper half of his face hidden behind a wall, than not see her for another two -- maybe even three -- hours. 

It’s absolutely insane to ponder about how different his life would have turned out without his two girls in it; how that one fleeting moment, when his heart told his brain to shut up and just kiss the girl already, flipped his life upside down in the best way possible. 

Tessa says she doesn’t remember how they first met -- that to her, he’s simply been that cheeky boy in ballet class for as long as she remembers -- but he does, and he isn’t afraid to let people know it. They met on the first day of Ballet I. He doesn’t remember what he was wearing (probably something irritatingly tight), but she was dressed in a white leotard and matching skirt with her hair up in what looked to him like a perfect bun. He’d goofed off the entire class, she’d glared at him in between exercises, and from that moment on, their lives were intertwined for years, first by chance, then by choice. 

Thinking back, he realizes he’s always known that there would always be a piece of his heart reserved for Tessa Virtue. But back during his more rowdy teenage and young adult years, it had taken not seeing her for months and dating other girls to realize that Tessa was, as silly as it sounds, it for him. 

He’s never asked her, but he thinks -- no, _knows_ \-- that she shared the same sentiment. Neither of them ever brought it up, but it was always there, in the way his day grew substantially brighter when he ran into her in the hallway, in the way she flashed him a tight smile whenever he talked about his previous girlfriends, and in the way her voice quivered when she told him how proud she is of him the day he enlisted.

It took almost two decades and the loss of a comrade for him to realize that he simply couldn’t leave for his deployment without at least trying. For so long, he’d dreamt of kissing her, imagined just how soft her lips would feel against his, wondered if she’d make a little sound or just sigh in contentment, and slapped himself out of his daydreams by telling himself that there is no way that she would kiss him back. 

But she did. Or perhaps the more accurate phrasing would be that he kissed her back, for the instant he mumbled a very bashful “C--can I kiss you?” her lips crashed onto his. He still remembers vividly the hint of chocolate lingering on her tongue and the barely audible moan she’d let out when he pressed her body against his. 

The airplane bumps along the tarmac, and this time, it’s the flight attendant’s voice that mingles amongst the groans of awaking adults and cries of babies. “Welcome to Canada, ladies and gentlemen, and to all Canadians and residents of Canada, a very warm welcome home,” she says, and _fuck_. He can’t wait to kiss his wife senseless.

The ride from the airport to the vicinity of the Walter Carsen Centre is excruciatingly long, more so now that he realizes that Tessa must be at the tail end of her rehearsals. He hops off a couple of blocks away to swing by a local bakery to pick up a vanilla cupcake he knows she’ll love. He also stops by a florist to get a small bouquet of flowers.

Toronto isn’t a rural town, and Scott has seen people with far more captivating attire than his uniform. Nonetheless, he feels brief glimpses towards him as he walks down the street. It’s not the first time it’s happened, and he supposes he ought to be used to it by now, but he still doesn’t know what to do when teary-eyed ladies approach him and thank him for his service or when young children gape at him, like he’s Captain America or something. Maybe he should’ve changed at the airport, but honestly? He couldn’t care less about what he’s wearing. All he cares about is seeing his wife.

It doesn’t seem like anyone has spotted him yet, which is a bit ridiculous, seeing as there’s an entire wall of mirrors and he’s not making any effort to hide, but the dancers are either lost in their routines or following another’s with their eyes, so he could see why they might not have noticed the soldier spying in on their rehearsal. His heart skips a beat when Tessa leaps into the center of the studio. She’s dressed in a plain black leotard, with a matching skirt wrapped around her waist, and her sweat has stuck the flyaways to the side of her face, but he still has no doubt that she is the most beautiful woman he has ever laid his eyes on.

He shifts his weight onto his other foot just as Tessa starts her series of fouettes, and he freezes as she falls out of her turn and just _stares_ at the mirror, her cheeks flushed and lips slightly parted in disbelief. He smiles through the tears that are stinging his eyes and waves sheepishly. It’s her lack of reaction that prompts him to take a couple of steps forward. Before he knows it, the other dancers are ushering him into the studio. 

She doesn’t turn around even as he walks towards her, as if she’s afraid that his reflection will vanish if she does so much as blink. 

“Tessa?” Scott places the cupcake and flower on the ground. He doesn’t know what exactly he did that snapped her out of her shocked state, but he must have done something right because the instant he is upright again, she launches herself at him, flinging her arms around him and burying her face in the crook of his neck. He can feel her chest rising and falling at an alarming rate, and he wants to murmur words of comfort in her ears. The only problem is that a boulder has lodged itself in his throat as well. Either that, or he’s lost the ability to speak, because the only sounds he seems to be able to make are strangled sobs. 

God, he missed holding her like this, missed the trace of vanilla scent that lingered on her skin after her bath, and missed smoothing his palm over her silky hair. He missed her groans and mumbles as she tried to wake up in the morning and the lazy Sunday afternoons they spent in bed with Gracie snuggled in between them. And lord knows he’s missed her hearty laugh. 

She arches herself away from him, just enough for him to see her face. She wipes at her eyes and cheeks with the back of her hand and takes a shaky breath, casting her eyes down and biting her lips so hard, he’s afraid it’ll start to bleed. Her fingers play with the collar of his uniform, bunching it up and then letting it go. He runs a thumb over her cheekbone to brush away a runaway teardrop and gently lifts her head up so that he can look into those gorgeous emerald green eyes again. 

“Hi,” he chokes out, forcing a shaky smile on his face.

She laughs, a breathy huff of air that encapsulates more emotions that any combination of words could muster. “Hi.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this one-shot! Please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a message on tumblr (@philosophronia). Brownie points for those of you that got which airlines inspired the landing announcement used in this story ;)


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